David Gates - Preston Falls

"I guess nothing is uppermost," says Jean.

"Oh, that's perfectly all right. What this tells me is that you're an alert person and not drifting off in your own thoughts. Perhaps you're somewhat guarded. Or just wary in this particular situation. Most people, I have to say, are relieved when they find I don't sit around boiling bats." Her little laugh sounds as rehearsed as the line itself. "Now. You've brought me something of your husband's?"

"7 did," says Carol, reaching down for her purse. Mrs. Porter looks at Carol; Carol looks back. "I didn't tell her a whole lot about this."

"I see. Well, then, no wonder you're wary, Mrs. Willis. Good heavens. What must you imagine?"

"Okay," says Carol. "Pair of socks." She holds them up. "Obviously. A hat." Willis's Yankees cap. "Passport?"

"You went through his drawers?'' Jean says.

"Razor?" says Carol.

"Ah. Give that here." Mrs. Porter leans toward Carol, who hands her a blue plastic razor. "You see, he would've held this while looking at himself in the mirror." Smiling, she holds the razor up with thumb and forefinger. "You should understand, Mrs. Willis, that it doesn't matter whether or not you believe in this."

"I guess that's good," says Jean.

"AU I need you to do at this point is let me have just a few moments

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of quiet. You can read a magazine if you like" — she gestures at the coffee table—"or watch, if you care to. You won't disturb me, though I'm afraid there's not much to see. An old lady sitting with her eyes closed can't be very entertaining."

Jean looks at the coffee table. Reader's Digest, McCall's, People, a newspaper called St. Anthony Messenger. An old Newsweek with a cover story glorifying fat Jerry Garcia. Neither she nor Carol reaches for anything.

"So, we'll speak in a few minutes, then," says Mrs. Porter. "Just make yourselves comfortable. You don't have to be statues. As I say, the only thing I ask is that you not talk or make a lot of racket."

"We won't," says Carol. Like a four-year-old.

Mrs. Porter closes her eyes, squeezes the handle of the razor in her left hand and folds her right hand over it. Her lips move, as if in prayer, then stop. Her breast rises and subsides, rises and subsides. Jean looks over, and Carol's eyes are closed too.

Jean closes hers, takes a breath, lets it out — and the bottom just falls away from under everything.

She feels her lips coming apart like a sticky seal peeling open, and her jaw dropping down to her collarbone, and then drool creeping over the corner of her mouth. That makes her eyes fly open: she's on somebody's couch, gasping. Never has she gone so deep so quickly. Mrs. Porter and Carol sit there, eyes still closed. She hears ticking; she turns and sees a banjo clock on the wall over her right shoulder. Twenty to six. What just happened seems already less profound and terrifying. She's exhausted, that's all, and she dropped off for a second.

"Well, he's somewhere with trees and grass," says Mrs. Porter. Jean whips her head around again to look. Mrs. Porter's eyes are open and she's talking as normally as before.

"What?" Jean says.

"Goodness, that sounds awful, doesn't it? Like a cemetery. But it's definitely not a cemetery. This has been a difficult time for him. But he's come through something. You'll see him again, that's almost certain." Then Mrs. Porter bends forward and makes smooching noises. "Moses? Come and be sociable."

"That's it?" says Jean. "He's with the trees and the grass and Til see him again?"

"Almost certainly," Mrs. Porter says.

"Excuse me, but isn't that, like, a little thin?''

PRESTON FALLS

"Jean," says Carol. "Let her finish."

"Oh no. I'm finished," Mrs. Porter says. "But I'm as certain of that as I am of sitting here talking to you."

Jean shakes her head. "That was nothing."

"I can understand why you're disappointed," says Mrs. Porter. "If it makes you feel any better, I'd say you're at about the fiftieth percentile. If you see what I mean. Sometimes you'll get nothing but a single word that nobody understands. Or a note of music — I've had that happen. It's not like watching television, Mrs. Willis."

"Really," says Jean.

"Now, what I've told you is a rough translation into words of certain feelings, or impressions. I take it your husband is also someone who guards his feelings?"

"Oh please." Jean gets to her feet and picks up her purse from the floor.

"Jean," says Carol. "Would you let her finish, for Pete's sake?"

"She is finished," Jean says. "Weren't you paying attention? Willis is out with the grass and the trees and I'll see him again. He's probably playing golf. In Boca Raton. How much do I owe you, Mrs. Porter? And could I have my husband's razor back, please?"

Mrs. Porter hands it to her, shaking her head.

"I'm not in business, Mrs. Willis," she says. "Haven't you understood?"

"I still don't want to talk about it." They're at The Hideaway, Carol working on a Cobb salad served in an edible shell, Jean with a shrimp cocktail in front of her and a martini for which the shrimp cocktail is the excuse. Jean spoke exactly one word all the way from Beacon back down to Chesterton: when Carol asked if she wanted to stop for a bite to eat, she said, "Fine."

"All I want to say is I'm sorry, okay? And then I'll get right off the subject," says Carol. "But I do have to say I have heard her be better, which is the only reason I—"

"Listen," says Jean, "I want to ask one thing of you. That you mention this to no one, you understand?"

"Believe me, I—"

"As far as the kids, I just had to work late, okay? Anybody else, it's not their business anyway."

"Look, don't you think I'm embarrassed?"

"I'm sorry, I know you are," Jean says. "And I know you meant weU."

"I really did."

Jean takes another sip of the martini; it tastes as poisonous as the first two sips. The shrimps curve over the rim of the metal bowl like the toenails of some animal. "I don't want these," she says. "You want any?"

"Not really," says Carol. "I might take one. But you have to eat. You want some of mine? This thing is huge."

"Don't worry, you're not going to have to carry me into the house. I can't drink this either."

"Oh, could I have a sip?" says Carol. "Can you believe I've never tried one of these? And I'm how old? Don't answer that."

"Be my guest."

PRESTON FALLS

Carol picks up the martini glass with her fingertips and takes just the littlest bit on her tongue. "Ee-eew. That's what businessmen drink?"

"It feels like it warms you all the way down your front. I just udsh I could stand the taste. "

''All the way down?" Carol says. "Honey, if a drink could do that. You know, I sometimes think, I'm only forty-seven. That's not old anymore. And I don't look /errible."

"Of course you don't; you look great.""

"Okay, I look great. Damn it, I do look great; I am not going to send myself negative messages. But here I am, you know? These are supposed to be the best years of your life sexually, and I'm, you know, high and dry. Could I have another little hit?"

"All yours," says Jean.

Carol takes another tiny sip. "Yick," she says. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to get into this. You start to dwell on it, and it just turns all your positive energy against you."

"No, you have a right to feel cheated. And being stuck here for two months — it's kind of a black hole as far as meeting anybody. God, W6'5/chester."

"Honey, this has been a lifesaver. When Dexter first went away to school, it was like this great weight was just lifted off, but then — I don't mean he's a weight, but I was just suddenly sort of floating off into the sky, you know? And that's where I've been. I was thinking about it the other day, when I took the kids to the museum and we saw that Naturemax thing? You know, the camera must be in a balloon or something and you're way up above everything and you're floating, like? So it's sort of been a very scary time, though it's also been really freeing, you know? And when you called in the middle of all that, I just thought, well, this is the voice of, you know, not God as such, but sort of the voice of the next thing."